pufas in skincare: why we build on stable fats

by Angela Clifton, founder of Edenwild

If you spend any time in ancestral health circles, you've probably heard that PUFAs are something to avoid. Usually that conversation is about seed oils in food. But more and more people are asking the same question about what they put on their skin, and they deserve a straight answer rather than a scary one.

This past year, we went through every Edenwild formula with PUFAs in mind. Some oils came out. A few stayed, on purpose. Here's what we learned, where we landed, and why.

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what are pufas?

Every oil and fat is made mostly of fatty acids, and fatty acids come in three basic types. The difference between them is how many double bonds they have in their structure.

• Saturated fats have no double bonds. They're solid or semi-solid at room temperature and very stable.
• Monounsaturated fats (MUFAs) have one double bond. Oleic acid, found in olive oil and tallow, is the most familiar example. They're fairly stable.
• Polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) have two or more double bonds. The main ones in skincare oils are linoleic acid (an omega-6) and alpha-linolenic acid (an omega-3). They're the least stable of the three.

Every natural oil is a mix of all three. What makes an oil "high-PUFA" is simply that polyunsaturated fats make up a large share of it. Rosehip, pomegranate seed, sunflower, grapeseed, and evening primrose oils are common examples in skincare.

pufas aren't the enemy

It would be easy to write this article as a list of oils to fear. That wouldn't be honest.

Linoleic acid is an essential fatty acid, which means the body can't make it on its own. Skin uses it as part of the lipids that make up its natural barrier. That's a big reason high-PUFA oils became so popular in natural skincare. They feel light, they absorb quickly, and they contain fatty acids skin genuinely recognizes.

So the question was never "are PUFAs good or bad?" The better question is "what happens to these oils between the day a product is made and the day it's used up?"

the real problem: oxidation

Those double bonds that define a PUFA are also its weak points. Each one is a spot where oxygen can attack the molecule. The more double bonds an oil has, the faster it reacts with air, light, and heat.

That reaction is called oxidation, and it's what makes an oil go rancid. You'll usually notice it as a sharp, stale, or crayon-like smell, sometimes with a change in color. By the time you can smell it, the oil has already been breaking down for a while.

This matters even more in the kinds of products we make. Our balms and serums are waterless, which means oxidation, not bacteria, is what limits their life. Antioxidants like non-GMO vitamin E and rosemary seed extract help slow oxidation down, and we use them across our line. But they slow it. They don't stop it. If a formula is built mostly on oils that want to oxidize, no amount of vitamin E fully solves that.

Saturated and monounsaturated fats don't have this problem to nearly the same degree. That's a big part of why traditional skin preparations leaned so heavily on animal fats and stable plant oils. People didn't know the chemistry, but they knew what kept.

why stability matters for reactive skin

Oxidized oils aren't just unpleasant to smell. As oils break down, they form new compounds that weren't in the fresh oil, and those compounds are more likely to irritate skin, especially skin that already runs sensitive.

Edenwild is built around one question: would we put this on our daughters' skin? We formulate for the most reactive skin in a household, from little ones to their moms and grandmothers. For that standard, a product that's gentle on the day it's made isn't enough. It needs to stay gentle on the last day you use it, months later, after sitting on a warm bathroom shelf.

That's the real reason PUFAs became part of our formulating process. Not a trend, and not fear. Stability is part of gentleness.

how we formulate around pufas

Our approach comes down to three rules.

1. build on stable fats

Every Edenwild formula starts from a foundation that resists oxidation naturally:

• Grass-fed and finished tallow from suet is made up mostly of saturated and monounsaturated fats, with only a small amount of PUFA. It's the backbone of our balms.
• Jojoba oil isn't technically an oil at all. It's a liquid wax, which makes it exceptionally stable. It's the base of our serums and the carrier for most of our slow-infused botanicals.
• Squalane (from olives) is fully saturated, so it's about as stable as a plant-derived ingredient gets.
• Supporting oils like camellia seed and plum kernel are naturally high in monounsaturated oleic acid, so they bring richness without the instability.

2. only use a high-pufa oil when it earns its place

A PUFA-rich oil has to bring something we can't get from a more stable ingredient. If a stable oil can do the same job, the stable oil wins.

3. keep usage low enough that stability isn't affected

When a high-PUFA oil does make the cut, it goes in at a low usage rate, alongside antioxidants, inside a formula that's overwhelmingly stable. At that level, it contributes what we want from it without changing how the formula holds up over time.

what we removed, and what we kept

Applying those rules meant real changes across our line.

What we removed: rosehip seed oil, pomegranate seed oil, and sunflower oil are no longer in any Edenwild formula. All three are popular in natural skincare, but all three are high in PUFAs, and we found stable alternatives that could do their jobs. In Nectar Serum, for example, we replaced them with more meadowfoam seed oil, jojoba, and squalane, all far more stable.

What we kept, deliberately: a small number of PUFA-rich oils stayed because their benefit outweighs the tradeoff at the low rates we use.

• Red raspberry seed oil stays in Golden Root Antioxidant Balm for its naturally occurring antioxidants, at a low usage rate inside a tallow base.
• Green coffee bean oil stays in Golden Root and Nectar for the same reason, and we reduced its level in Nectar.
• Black cumin seed oil, a traditional ingredient with a long history across the Middle East and North Africa, remains the hero of Morning Dew Balm, balanced by grass-fed and finished tallow from suet.

One more worth mentioning: the sea buckthorn in Golden Root and Alpenglow Serum is the fruit oil, not the seed oil. The fruit oil is rich in palmitoleic acid, a monounsaturated fat, which makes it a steadier choice than its seed-oil counterpart.

what we won't claim

The PUFA conversation online can get intense. You'll find claims that any PUFA on your skin is harmful, or bigger claims about what topical oils do inside the body. We don't make those claims, because the evidence doesn't support stating them as fact.

Here's what we're confident in: high-PUFA oils oxidize faster, oxidized oils are more likely to irritate reactive skin, and a formula built on stable fats stays fresher, longer. That's enough reason to formulate the way we do. It doesn't need exaggerating.

It's also worth saying that this article is about skincare. The dietary seed oil debate is its own conversation, with its own evidence, and it's outside what we're here to talk about.

how to spot high-pufa oils on a label

Whether or not you ever use Edenwild, here's what to look for when you read an ingredient list:

• Common high-PUFA oils: rosehip, pomegranate seed, sunflower, grapeseed, safflower, evening primrose, hemp seed, and borage.
• Where they sit on the list: ingredients are listed by weight, so a high-PUFA oil near the top is a bigger part of the formula than one near the bottom.
• What protects them: look for antioxidants like vitamin E (tocopherol) and rosemary extract.
• How it smells over time: a sharp, stale, or crayon-like smell means an oil has started to oxidize.
• How it's packaged: dark or amber glass and airless pumps help keep light and air out.

One note: some oils come in "high-oleic" versions, like high-oleic sunflower or safflower. These are bred to be mostly monounsaturated, so they're far more stable than the standard versions. A label won't always tell you which one you're getting.

For every ingredient we use and why, visit our ingredient glossary. To see what we've chosen to leave out entirely, read our Never List.

read more

• myrrh for skin - why we slow-infuse the whole resin
• why is sea buckthorn? the ancestral ingredient most brands dilute
• what is ancestral skincare? a complete guide

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• myrrh resin collection: morning dew tallow balm and alpenglow serum
• tallow skincare collection: the full line of grass-fed and finished tallow from suet
• sensitive skin collection: colloidal oatmeal for sensitive, reactive skin